Re: Kensington Runestone - Nielsen and Wolters.

Eric Stevens wrote in message ...
>
>On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 14:09:51 GMT, "David B" <tronospamchos@xxxxxxxxx>
>wrote:
>>
>>Has Wolter established that the newly-discovered aspects of the runes are
>>contemporary with the making of the runes as previously understood?
>
>I'm not quite sure what you mean by that but (probably) Nielsen has
>established that the newly identified runes are consistent with the
>usage of 14th century Gotland and only with 14th century Gotland.

See below

>>Eric Stevens wrote:
>>>
>>>8. Wolters touches on the examination of the weathering of tombstones
>>> but other than stating the broad results he goes into no great
>>> detail.
>>
>>That alone makes the book not worth buying for me. Until I see convincing
>>evidence that the aging of the runes could not be partly artificial, I'd
>>have to say that all the rest of the, no doubt fascinating, arguments are
>>only as relevant to real medieval history as The Da Vinci Code.
>
>I'm not quite sure where, but Wolters somewhere states in his book
>that artificial aging of the surface of the stone can be excluded. As
>you know, I made enquiries of geo-technical experts about this some
>years ago and reached the same conclusion. I know you (and others)
>like the idea of artificial aging but until you can come up with a
>mechanism which will withstand the close examination of an expert
>armed with all the tools of modern science, I don't think the idea
>will fly.

But that's exactly why your point (8) makes the book such a letdown for me.
If Wolter had presented a convincing explanation of _how_ his examination
of the KRS ruled out artificial weathering to disguise freshly-exposed
mica, I'd have been interested. This also brings me back to the dating of
the "newly-discovered aspects of the runes" (by which I meant the
additional marks which changed the interpretation of some runes). If those
marks cannot _physically_ be proved to be of the same era as the previously
known carving, then they must be treated with great suspicion.

David B.


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